State Basic Education Funding
For the 2012-13 school year, Smethport Area School District received $6,164,882. The Governor's Executive Budget for 2012-2013 included $9.34 billion for kindergarten through 12th grade public education including $5.4 billion in basic education funding which was an increase of $49 million over the 2011-12 budget. In addition, the Commonwealth provided $100 million for the Accountability Block grant program. Smethport Area School District received $77,642. The state also provided a $544.4 million payment for School Employees’ Social Security and $856 million for School Employees’ Retirement fund called PSERS.
In 2011-12, Smethport Area School District received a $6,164,882 allocation, of state Basic Education Funding. Additionally, the School District received $77,642 in Accountability Block Grant funding. The enacted Pennsylvania state Education budget included $5,354,629,000 for the 2011-2012 Basic Education Funding appropriation. This amount was a $233,290,000 increase (4.6%) over the enacted State appropriation for 2010-2011. The highest increase in state basic education funding was awarded to Duquesne City School District which got a 49% increase in state funding for 2011-12. In 2010, the district reported that 396 students received free or reduced price lunches, due to the family meeting the federal poverty level.
In the 2010-11 budget year, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provided the base 2% increase in Basic Education Funding for a total of $6,434,551 to Smethport Area School District. Among the public school districts in McKean County, the highest increase went to Kane Area School District which got a 4.28% increase. One hundred fifty Pennsylvania school districts received the base 2% increase. The highest increase in 2010-11 went to Kennett Consolidated School District in Chester County which received a 23.65% increase in state funding. The state's hold harmless policy regarding state basic education funding continued where each district received at least the same amount as it received the prior school year, even when enrollment had significantly declined. The amount of increase each school district received was set by Governor Edward Rendell and then Secretary of Education Gerald Zahorchak, as a part of the state budget proposal given each February. This was the second year of Governor Rendell’s policy to fund some districts at a far greater rate than others.
In the 2009–2010 budget year, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provided a 2.33% increase in state Basic Education funding for a total of $6,308,383. This was the lowest funding increase received by a McKean County school district in 2009. For comparison, Governor Rendell gave a 7.46% increase in funding to Bradford Area School District and Kane Area School District received a 5.32% increase in state funding. Ninety school Pennsylvania public school districts received a 2% increase. Muhlenberg School District in Berks County received a 22.31% increase in state basic education funding in 2009. The amount of increase each school district received was set by Governor Edward G. Rendell and the Secretary of Education Gerald Zahorchak, as a part of the state budget proposal. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Pennsylvania spent $7,824 Per Pupil in the year 2000. This amount increased up to $12,085 by the year 2008.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, 310 district students received free or reduced lunches due to low family income in the 2007–2008 school year.
The Commonwealth's Basic Education funding to Smethport Area School District in 2008–09 was $6,164,881.96.
Read more about this topic: Smethport Area School District, Budget
Famous quotes containing the words state, basic and/or education:
“The United States is a republic, and a republic is a state in which the people are the boss. That means us. And if the big shots in Washington don’t do like we vote, we don’t vote for them, by golly, no more.”
—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“It is not an exaggeration to say that play is as basic to your child’s total development as good food, cleanliness, and rest.”
—Joanne E. Oppenheim (20th century)
“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)